Japan Drone 2016: Commercial Drone Expo – ジャパン ドローン 2016

Japan held its first big event for the commercial drone market, Japan Drone 2016, on March 24-26 at the Makuhari Messe convention center located outside Tokyo.
A success, according to the event organizer, over 8,000 people attended. On hand were around 150 drones on display by some 120 companies and organizations.

Check out the above video from NipponNewsNet for a good overview of the event.

The Japan market for commercial applications and services related to drones is set to take off … with more and more companies and organizations jumping into the market.
Below is the NTT Eastern Japan company booth at the event which displayed among other applications, a drone built for the heavy lifting of communication cable.

Drone Movie Contest

The event included a contest of drone aerial videography, Drone Movie Contest. One of the winners was a very well done video called Inspire – Breathtaking aerial views of Japan from a drone The videographer utilized a DJI Inspire1 and Inspire1 Pro for video capture.

FPV Drone Race

In addition, their was an indoor FPV drone race, the Drone Impact Challenge.
This event gave people a sample of the new and upcoming sport of First Person View (FPV) drone racing.

The next Japan Drone exhibition is scheduled for next year (2017) on March 23-25, again at the Makuhari convention center in Chiba, Japan. See the Japan Drone expo website for more information on the next event.

Other Japan Events

Japan has other drone industry events that include:

International Drone Expo 2016

This event is scheduled for April 20-22, 2016 outside of Tokyo at Makuhari and is concurrent with the Techno-Frontier 2016 and IoT Tech 2016 events . Find out more about this event at their website.

UPDATE: April 28
The International Drone Expo 2016 event is over, however, check out here the variety of drone products and services that were on display.

IDE Tokyo

International Drone Expo Tokyo is scheduled for May 25-27, 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight convention center. More info at their website.